Going Over The Top
by Cohen's girl
Summary: The groups thoughts before going over the top. Please r&r, my first fic so plz be nice! Final chap up!
1. George POV

**Going Over the Top**

"I'm scared sir."

It had all built up to this. This one moment. It was all he'd thought about. All he'd waited for. He'd been going on about it since the first day he'd stepped into the trenches. Going over the top; it didn't seem so easy now.

"I'm scared sir." Spoken words ringing so true now. Scared; scared of those damn Germans, scared for his life, scared for his friends...Scared that this was it. His life spent on some stupid dream that was never going to come true.

"I'm scared sir." Perhaps he had been wrong, when he and the tiddlywinks crew had signed up. Perhaps life didn't have to be about heroes and glory and fighting for your country. Perhaps he would have been better off at home. With his family. Perhaps it would have been better to settle down with someone and ignore the war. Myabe that's just naive.

"I'm scared sir." He wasn't ready to spill his blood on a battlefield. He was too young to die. He wondered why he had joined in the first place, now that he was here. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Never like this.

"I'm scared sir." _What am I going to do?_

"I'm scared sir." _I'm not ready for this._

"I'm scared sir." _I don't want to die yet._

"I'm scared sir." _Help me._

"I'm scared sir." _This is such a mess._

"I'm scared sir." When is that ever going to be enough?


	2. Blackadder POV

**Dislcaimer: **Sadly, anything from Blackadder doesn't belong to me.

Dedicated to 'The Mutant Velociraptor' Thx 4 my first eva review!! And so nice 2! :D Also thx 2 evry1 who has reviewed, there wil be a third chapter up v.soon so keep reading!

He had tried everything. Every shrewd idea of his and cunning plan of Baldric's was exhausted- this time, there really was no getting away from it. They were going over the top; and the chances were they weren't going to come back down. And he; the great Blackadder, experienced in the military and all that comes with it- he was terrified. More so, in fact, than he had ever been in his whole life.

He looked round the faces of his comrades, and wondered what each were thinking; Darling- well the spineless wimp was cowering before his very eyes. He still couldn't wish impending doom on him though, no matter how much he hated him. George- well, he was pretty sure George had left his brain back in England but that didn't mean he deserved to be shredded by German artillery. And Baldric- Dear, completely bonkers Baldric, who never even had a brain to begin with, but that didn't mean he warranted having whatever was up there blasted clean out. And what about himself? Out of all of them there, he probably deserved certain death the most, but that didn't mean he wanted it. No. He rather preferred George's idea of ice cream in Belgium in fifteen days.

The air seemed to grow colder. Maybe it was just in his head, or maybe it was God trying to hack him off one last time. Then again, he pondered if it was even possible that there was a God, what with all the killing going on. Hell, it was almost literally like sending lambs to the slaughter. They all ended up the same anyhow- dead. Cold, unseeing and dead. There was little point trying to stay positive.

Blackadder began to wonder whether it was worth going through all the trouble of running out onto the field, and dying a long, drawn out death, with blood, pain and being trampled on, when he could just do it quickly and far more cleanly himself. What was one more bullet, one more man?

"I'm scared sir." Of course it was worth it. What would they do without the great Blackadder?


	3. Darling POV

**Disclaimer: I don't own Blackadder or anything to do with it : (**

Thanks every1 for ur reviews, keep reading, any criticism is welcome : )

Darling had come to the conclusion that General Melchett was an idiot. Not only that- he was an evil, selfish, cowardly idiot; and after all the time he and Darling had spent together- all the time Darling had spent slaving for him- he was still sent to his death. Melchett didn't care if Darling was laying dead on the battlefield by the next morning. He didn't care if he was blown to pieces by a shell, he didn't care if he had a bullet embedded in his skull and he didn't care if he died out of pure fear. All Melchett cared about was making sure that at the end of the war, he was still alive. When Darling had realised that, his whole world seemed to crumble, and the last three years licking Melchett's boots suddenly seemed such a waste.

All he could write in his diary was "bugger." It was a small, common word, and yet it was all he could think to write. There was no way he could express his feelings of utter terror with words, so he wrote the first thing that came to mind. He had wanted so much to just marry Doris and have a family. It would have been so plain, so simple, so- him. He was caught up in something that was just too big for him. Too big for any of them. He was out of his depth. As it turned out, in the end, he wouldn't have had a choice about joining the war anyway- but maybe he would have had a fighting chance.

What's more, the people he had to die with hated him. He was completely alone in a group of people who had spent the same last three years as comrades, as friends, as family even. They hated him because they thought that _he_ was the coward for trying to save his life. Then again, he had tried countless times to force them over the top. Maybe he was the selfish idiot; trying to force something on them that he knew nothing about- something he couldn't comprehend. He wanted to wonder what would happen; whether he might survive somehow, or whether he was right and he would die, or be blinded, or deafened and the rest of his life would be ruined. It became too painful in the end.

"I'm scared sir." Perhaps he wasn't quite alone as he had thought.

Soz but experiencing sum serious writers block so the next chapter mite not be up 4 a while:(


	4. Baldric POV

**Disclaimer: I don't own Blackadder, or any of the other characters, or the show. :(**

I managed to get this chapter up quicker than I thought I would! Thanks every1 who has reviewed, keep reading and reviewing, the next chapter should be the last one.

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Baldric wasn't really sure where he fitted into all of this. Everyone looked so terrified; but he didn't really mind all that much if he died. It wasn't like he had anything to return to anyway. He wished that Henry the hamster could have lived though- poor thing. What was a hamster doing in a trench anyway? Blackadder could be so insensitive sometimes, using him as a sink brush; he deserved more dignity than that, having been through as much war as them. Which, thinking about it, didn't amount to much. Baldric could still remember what he had said earlier, "Why don't we all just stop fighting?" And call him simple- which Blackadder often did- but it really was that easy. After all, if they all stopped fighting, there was no point in the English killing them all for refusing orders; that would just be a complete waste of time because then there would be no one to fight the war anyway. Baldric decided that he thought too much. It was no wonder he spoke such rubbish all the time.

He only had one cunning plan left- and he wasn't going to bother with it until they were at the front line anyway, because, truth be told, he didn't really think it was all that cunning. Then again, Blackadder never seemed to think his plans were cunning, but Baldric had long gotten used to that. Blackadder just didn't appreciate his genius ideas.

Baldric wasn't so sure he wanted to leave the trenches now, or the people in them. Not after all they'd done together. Even if they had run out of coffee, mud would do just fine for him. He just didn't want to leave. Not now that he had something; friends? At least, Blackadder was a shepard, and he was a bit of a sheep, but he didn't mind that. He liked being around people for a change.

I'm scared sir." At least George had something to be scared about.


	5. Never The End

**Disclaimer: I don't own Blackadder or any of the characters I'm just using them :(**

Soz it took so long 2 write the last chapter, I wasn't sure how 2 do it- its pretty dark, but i wanted it 2 be realistic. Plz R&R!

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It seemed wrong, somehow, that he, the one who had pronounced all their fear, was the one to survive. The only one. If he was the coward of them all, the only one to speak the words that no one dared to say, why should he be the one to live? There were no answers to any questions he had; no peace to be found. Then again, he may have survived, but he truly believed he had got the rawest deal of all- he was the one who had to carry along a weight of guilt for the rest of his life. He was the one who had to endure nightmares every night, about watching his friends drowning in their own blood. Only it wasn't a nightmare, was it? It was the one type of nightmare he could never wake up from- a memory.

And what homage did they get? Countless, tiny white graves, and a few red poppies. How could that ever show what he had seen? How could that ever show what they had been through together? These people hadn't just been his friends- they had been a part of him. It was like hacking off one of his arms or legs- only, that wouldn't be so bad, he could live with that. They could be replaced; he wouldn't mind having a wooden leg like Long John Silver or something. But he could never replace Blackadder. Baldric. Even Darling- even if he hadn't really liked the guy. It'd be no good having wooden replacements of them. They wouldn't talk. Laugh. Yell. Cry. Tell him he didn't have a single braincell. They wouldn't clap him on the back and tell him he was an idiot. He was going to have to live with that, till the day he died. He should have died with them- but somehow, for some reason, he hadn't. How was he meant to go on, when what had been his life for three years, had been so cruelly ripped from him? He still had no answers.

And he can still hear it, that one sentence, echoing in his head,

_"I'm scared sir." _And the saddest thing? He still is.

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I'm not sureif that was a bit 2 angsty, but there u go, plz tell me wot u thought. For anybody who's read this story, I hope u enjoyed it!

Thx Arbee for the lovely review! I'll try and get some more fics up soon :D

Missy mee- yay! Soz that sounded harsh, im not happy ur sad but part of the idea of my fic was to make people feel sad about the war and soldiers in the war, so i feel like i was successful :)


	6. Melchett POV

**Dislcaimer: **Sadly, anything from Blackadder doesn't belong to me.

**Author's note: **Well I haven't updated this in a while:D And i wasn't intending to either, but I just suddenly realised that I had never inlcuded Melchett! and I thought that he deserved a say after everything. So he's getting it. :)

When Melchett had first given the orders to go over the top, it had almost seemed like a joke. It didn't seem like a serious idea- why, he had ordered it so many times in the past, and some way or another those lads had always got out of it. Safely tucked away in a warm, comfortable room it had been too hard for him to imagine them out there. He wasn't a particularly empathetic person. Besides; fighting was what the war was all about! What was the point of coming all the way to the frontline, if you weren't going to do anything once you were there?

Well, he would be the only one viable to answer that question now.

He had thought that sending Darling over the top was...a gift of some kind, allowing him to feel that sense of patriotism that had been stolen from him. Darling had cried- something Melchett had mistaken for joy, not horror- but he had not complained. Melchett wondered on that now. Poor Darling.

He had recieved a call from George. Partly just to tell him that everyone but him was dead; but also to blame. Melchett had replaced the phone in its cradle, muttering to himself that George had no right to be blaming him, that it was his job to give orders, and the mens duty to follow them. For a while, he had actually believed his own words.

When he started to begin doubting his words, he told himself that their deaths were no considerable loss anyway. Darling was about as emasculate as a man could get without actually becoming a woman, Baldric had no brain cells to speak of and Blackadder had shot his beautiful speckled Jim. And that was plain unforgivable. But eventually, Melchett had come to the dismal conclusion that he had sat, happy and safe, while sending others to die and the thought didn't sit well with him.

Melchett had justified not following his men by reminding himself that it was not his job- but in reality he had been weak, and scared. He was all for beating the Germans, and fighting with honour and GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! But it was nasty out there, in no man's land, with gunfire and shells and dirt and blood: he had been told so. However with the death of these three men- and however many more he had sent to their deaths- weighing on his concsience, going over the top didn't seem such a big concern.

Melchett shook his head and returned to his feeble battle plans. It was worthless to worry about these things. But George's words struck a chord in him; stung him deep down.

"Do you know what I said before we went over the top? That I was scared. And at first, I felt ashamed. But now I've realised that _I _went over the top, and I fought and I lived. And I am ten times the man you'll ever be. Just like they are. They might be dead, but they died brave men."

Melchett was not going to die a brave man. And that thought did not sit well with him.

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I hope that this fits in with the rest :S I guess its kind of an epilogue as well as Melchys POV. Plz R&R and tell me what you think, and thanks to every1 who has reviewed in the past, you've all been so kind:D 


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